Three teachers at Triton Regional High School in New Jersey have been charged with having sexual relations with students, and an additional two administrators are being investigated for covering it up.

Late last week three teachers at Triton Regional High School – Daniel Michielli, 27, boys soccer coach and health teacher Nick Martinelli, 28,and girls’ cross country coach and math teacher Jeff Logandro, 32 – were charged with having sexual relations three separate girls at the school between Nov. 2011 and June 2012. Additionally, principal Catherine DePaul, 55, and vice principal Jernee Kollock, 39 were charged with failing to report the incidents to authorities.

Allegedly, DePaul learned of the first allegations in April when one of the girls informed a substitute teacher of the situation. The female student and substitute then went to DePaul with the information, and the girl was instructed to writer out her account. During this process the principal directed the student what to write and corrected it. DePaul has now admitted to not notifying the authorities even after she learned of the incident.

The three teachers have been placed on administrative leave at different times over the summer, and all three students are said to have graduated from the school this past June.

According to the charges, Michielli had sexual intercourse with the 17-year-old student female student during the school year. Marinelli, however, did not have intercourse with the girl in his case until after she turned 18 and had graduated, and only “kissed victim and touched her intimate parts on mulitiple occasions during the school year.” That resulted in him only being charged with second-degree official misconduct. Logandro is said to have only kissed his victim and touched her “intimate parts,” and later apologized to the girl’s parents for having kissed her.

The principal and vice-principal are charged with second-degree official misconduct and hindering an investigation.

A former English teacher from Kennedale High School in Texas has been sentenced to five years in prison for engaging in a group sex act with students.

Brittni Colleps, 28, was sentenced to five years in prison this week for having engaged in sexual acts with at least five students in 2011. The married mother of three was arrested last year after the students bragged about having engaged in group sex with the teacher wherein four of them participated and another recorded the event on his cellphone.

During the course of the trial, the video was shown to the jury on Wednesday, and while Colleps face was never visible, a distinctive lower back tattoo could be seen. Through out the video she was seen as she engaged in intercourse with two of the students and two others stood off to the side watching.

Thursday saw the students involved in the case take to the stand to describe in detail sexual texts the teacher had sent them which reportedly numbered in the thousands. One student who was identified as “Richard” said that he had not exchanged any text messages with Colleps, but had visited her home on two separate occasions where she performed oral sex on him. Another student identified as “Jordan”, now 20, testified that he had visited her home on two different occasions, both times resulting in group sex activities. It was during the second visit that he used the phone of another student identified as “Aaron” to record the event.

The oddness in this case arises from the fact that all of the students involved were over the age of 18 at the time the crimes occurred. However, in Texas, it is illegal for a teacher to engage in inappropriate conduct with a student of any age. Due to the age of the the students, she will not be required to register as a sex offender when she is released from prison. The jury also did not issue a fine or any community supervision.

Colleps was facing up to 20 years in prison for the 16 charges filed against her. After the closing arguments, the jury took only one hour to render its verdict.

Both Christopher Colleps, the husband in the case, and the convicted’s mother both testified during the trial that they did not feel she should be sent to jail due to the impact it would have on her children and them. “I’m asking you to give her probation. It’s not my fault or her children’s, and taking her away from us is punishing us,” Mr. Colleps said. “Brittni saved my life before I met her. I was doing bad things and when I met Brittni she gave me someone to love and care about.” The students that testified also stated that they did not feel she should be sentenced to any jail time.

Upon the sentencing, Colleps bail was revoked and she was immediately taken into the custody of the state.

Midwood, Brooklyn is dealing with yet another teacher sex scandal as it has been revealed that Erin Sayar, 36, has been slapped with a $10 million notice of claim in relation to a supposed lurid affair she had with a then 16-year-old male student. Sayar – a married mother of a yong daugher – has not yet been charged with any criminal activity, but she was removed from the classroom in January.

According to the legal filings, Sayar was tutoring the student in her office and offered him marijuana that she kept hidden in a filing cabinet. The student claims that the two engaged in sexual intercourse between eight and 12 times, and he was able to provide authorities with descriptions of tattoos that she had in intimate locations on her body. School investigators also discovered that the pair exchanged 3,856 text messages with one another over 17 days in December, which worked out to an average of 227 per day.

Apparently the encounters were not limited to being on school property and also say Sayar picked the student up from his one night in her SUV where they then drove to a secluded spot and engaged in sexual activity in the vehicle.

The pair we’re uncovered when the boy’s girlfriend spotted them flirting with one another and then hacked into the boy’s Facebook account. She discovered correspondence between the two that had the boy professing his love to the teacher, and her in turn providing him with her cell phone number and instructing him to delete other communications they had had. The outraged teen girl turned over the information to the school which then in turn confronted the student he revealed all of the details.

James Madison High School may sound familiar to you as it is the school where teachers Alini Brito and Cindy Mauro were found to be engaging in sexual relations in an empty classroom. This was quickly followed by gym teacher Lisa Guttilla was accused of sexual assault and the school earned the nickname “Horndog High.” Additionally, English teacher Craig Roffman was fired and arrested when it was discovered he had thousands of child pornography images on his home computer.

One has to wonder what exactly the issue is at this school, and at this point why anyone would still choose to send their child there for an education.

A former Florida teacher has been arrested over accusations that she had sex with an underage student during the school day in a closet attached to her classroom.

According to police reports, Kacy Christine Wilson, 28, was taken into custody last week over allegations she had sex with a 16-year-old student. Supposedly Ms. Wilson called the student out of another class at Osceola High School under the guise that he had left something in her room when he left class. The student, who has since confirmed the event, claims that upon entering the room she slammed him against a wall and began to make out with him. As the incident progressed she moved them into a closet attached to her room and proceeded to have sexual intercourse with him.

The allegations first arose last October when an anonymous letter to the school leveled accusations that Ms. Wilson had engaged in sexual relations with multiple students. The letter was turned over to the authorities for investigation, but when she was confronted with the information she refuted the claims, resigned her position and moved to Colorado.

Up until recently the student had not confirmed the claims, but on April 20 he officially went on record with everything that had happened. He went to the police and confirmed the original allegations and also provided them with topless photos Wilson had recently texted to him.

Wilson was arrested in Salida, Colorado and extradited to Osceola County where she is now in jail with her bond set at $85,000.

A Stafford Middle School teacher in Stafford, TX was arrested this past week over accusations he had inappropriate communications with students.

Paul Roberts, 53, was arrested this past week for accusations of sending inappropriate texts and social networking messages to two students at the school. He has also been charged with an improper relationship with a student, a second-degree felony in Texas, but there is no word on what that may have entailed.

In a letter to parents at the school issued last Wednesday, SMSD Superintendent Lance Hindt said:

After a thorough investigation, it has been determined that the teacher did engage in inappropriate conduct as outlined by district policy.

[…]

There have been unsubstantiated reports that this inappropriate conduct may have involved additional students, however, I want to assure you that we will continue to investigate these reports.

Roberts has been relieved of his math teaching duties at the school and has been released from the Fort Bend country jail on a $7,500 bond.

While the evidence has not been provided to the public, it sounds like it is fairly solid. This does make me wonder if social media contact between teachers and students should just be banned outright. While I am all for teachers being mentors to their students as well as their educators, it seems that we are seeing social networks and texting popping up in these cases more and more. There has been contact amongst teachers and students outside of school for as long as there has been phones, but for some reason these two forms of communication seem to be the ones abused the most.

A Bangor, PA school teacher has waived her right to a preliminary hearing and is heading to trial where she is accused of having sexual relations with multiple underage students at Bangor Area High School.

Rachel Farrell – who taught under her maiden name of Rachel Werner – resigned this past December from the Bangor Area High School in Pennsylvania after an investigation began surrounding allegations that she had a prolonged relationship with one student, and encounters with at least three more. Upon being confronted with the allegations, she confessed to district administrators and a resource officer two relations with two 17-year-old students, and later confirmed these confessions with a police detective.

Farrell is said to have had a prolonged relationship with one student from August 2010 to January 2011, following her having gotten married just prior to this in June 2010. Upon questioning the student, now 18 and graduated, he confirmed that he and Farrell had come friends in class and then communicated via Facebook and text messages. He went on to state that the two met multiple times to engage in sexual intercourse, including at least two visits at a Ramada Inn in Tannersville that did have records of Farrell renting a room there on two occasions in 2010.

Currently the 18-year-old has agreed to testify against Farrell, but none of the other students involved have yet agreed to do so.

Currently the charges stand at three counts of corruption of minors stemming from an encounter in a Walmart parking lot in Lower Nazareth Township and the two visits that were confirmed to the Ramada Inn.

As opposed to other cases were I always have to say “alleged,” since Farrell has confessed to at least some of the accounts, I have to wonder what drives a newly married woman to sleep with not one, but multiple students? Even if you remove the fact she had just gotten married, sleeping with one student is bad enough, but to do it repeatedly?

The human brain is something that always mystifies me, and when it acts in a way such as this, my disbelief grows even deeper.

Cristina Preston, 44, was arrested this week amid allegations that she had sexual relations with a 14-year-old male student.

Preston was taken into custody on Tuesday, but has since made bail which, according to the Ledger-Enquirer, came to $25,000 each on two counts of child molestation and $10,000 each on one count of sexual assault on a person in custody and one count of enticing a child for indecent purposes. Upon her release she resigned from her position with Veterans Memorial Middle School. She had taught special education in the school district for 19 years.

Apparently the entire series of events happened very quickly. Reports indicate that the statutory rape occurred at 12:30 AM on Monday in Cooper Creek Park in Columbus, GA, and by 10 PM on Monday the police were called to the boy’s home. The following day Preston was taking into custody.

Should Preston be convicted on all charges, and her terms stacked consecutively, she is facing up to 120 years in prison. The count of sexual assault on a person in custody is applied to any teacher and student from the same school, and that charge alone carries 25 to 50 years.

There is no word yet as to what evidence there was to make authorities act so quickly.

A 29-year-old woman with a high school aged younger sister informed her that a friend of her’s was bragging about having had sex with McLean. The woman informed authorities of the information and on November 28 McLean’s car and cell phone were seized as evidence in the case has led to her facing two felony counts of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of authority. Explicit text messages were found on the phone between the teacher and student.

When the 17-year-old student was questioned by the police, he admitted to having initiated kissing with McLean, and that the sex had indeed taken place had been consensual between the two. The teacher had been known for giving him rides home after practice which had raised some initial concerns among the faculty of the school, but it appears there had been no follow-up by anyone.

McLean was placed on administrative leave by the school district, but has since resigned from her position. She turned herself into the 18th Judicial District on January 4, but is now free on $25,000 bond. She had previously been a teacher in Michigan before taking up her post at Englewood HS as a English language arts and drama teacher in August 2011.

Once again we see a case of text messaging being a fairly significant factor in one of these cases, and you have to wonder at what point these teachers will learn not to leave a trail behind them, but so long as it helps stop them, lets hope they don’t catch on.

A Georgia teacher has been charged with numerous counts in regards to a sexual relationship she had with one of her teenage students.

Amy Bass Jackson, 35, was arrested last week after an investigation by the police into allegations made by the parents of one of her 14-year-old male students. She was accused of having sex with the boy, and after a week long investigation she was charged with aggravated child molestation, three counts of child molestation, statutory rape, enticing a child for indecent purposes, sexual assault by a person with supervisory or disciplinary authority, two counts computer or electronic child exploitation, sexual exploitation of children and six counts of furnishing harmful material to minors according to CoastalCourier. She was arrested last Wednesday, but Ms. Jackson resigned her position as a language arts teacher at William James Middle School as soon as the investigation began.

As per the usual trend these days with teacher sex scandals, Ms. Jackson apparently used social networks and cell phones to communicate with the unnamed victim. The Bulloch County Board of Education has already stated that they will be reviewing the incident and possibly enacting new rules governing what contact teachers may have with students through various electronic means.

While there has been no mention yet of what evidence there is against Ms. Bass exactly, the number of different charges, and the mentioning of social networks and cell phones suggests there must be some evidence, but that is pure speculation on my part. As with all of these cases, though, one has to wonder how things get to this point. Is there nothing in these teacher’s minds that could potentially tell them what they are doing is wrong? One has to wonder.

Stacy Hopkins, a teacher in Tennessee, has been arrested in connection with allegations that she had sex with two underage male students.

A physical education teacher and assistant girl’s basketball coach at Arlington High School in Arlington, Tennessee has been charged with two counts of aggravated statutory rape by an authority figure and two counts of solicitation, exploitation of a minor. Stacy Hopkins, 28, allegedly texted nude photos of herself to two male students aged 16 and 18, although the older one was 17 at the time of the instances. She is also said to have engaged in sexual intercourse with both students.

Hopkins came to the attention of the school when her ex-boyfriend phoned an assistant principal to inform her of the nude photos that were sent to the cell phones of the students. When confronted with the allegations, Ms. Hopkins reportedly confessed to the crimes according to an affidavit. When the students were questioned by authorities, they also confirmed the text messages and the sexual intercourse.

According to The Commercial Appeal, her Facebook status was set to “Teaching high school students what not to do or how to do it without getting caught. :-)” Yes, with a smiley face.

Hopkins has been put on unpaid administrative leave from the school where she has been a teacher since Aug. 2005.

It never fails to amaze me that no matter how many teacher sex scandals I’ve covered over the years, they never cease to amaze me in their depravity. No, just one student is enough, you have to go for two. While you can sometimes go, “Ok, fine, it’s wrong you slept with this student, but perhaps there is some bizarre chance you actually fell in love with them,” but two? What possible excuse is there for that?

A substitute teacher at the Robert L. Craig School in Moonachie, New Jersey has been arrested on charges stemming from sexual conduct with a 14-year-old boy at the school.

Patricia Gallegos, 24, was arrested last week in Moonachie, NJ and charged with one count of second-degree child endangerment. She was taken into custody afternoon of questioning by the Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli’s Sex Crimes and Child Abuse Unit. She was booked and had bail set at $20,000. Due to the nature of the charges it implies that nothing physical happened between the two, but there was some sort of relationship between the two since this past March.

Gallegos has been released from her teaching duties which saw substituting a few times a month at the elementary school. She is also said to be engaged to marry a U.S. Marine next year according to the Cliffview Pilot.

While there is no indication of what exactly the nature of the relationship was between Gallegos and the student, and while it happened within the city limits of Moonachie, nothing occurred on the actual school grounds.

While I have absolutely no idea what in the world the nature of this relationship could have possibly been, but for her to have been interviewed for hours and then charged, there had to have been something there for them to have thought they could charge her with, but it is truly puzzling what it could have been.

Barbara Anderson, a 37-year-old math teacher at Kentlake High School in Kent, WA has been charged with first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor.

Anderson was arrested in late March after it was discovered that the 17-year-old student she was allegedly involved with had told his uncle that he was having sex with a teacher. Once brought to the attention of the police the investigation discovered that the student had gone to Anderson after transferring into her math class for additional help. As time wore on he told her of his personal problems and she eventually gave him her cell number so that the could communicate privately.

Court documents report that the two became friendlier over a social network (which was named, but, yeah, I’m sure we can all figure out which one it was), and also began heavily texting one another. The teen’s mother said that between Jan. 25th and Feb. 21st the pair sent over 800 text messages to one another. There is evidence of at least one meeting between the two in the boy’s car where sexual acts were performed, and Anderson that asking via text when they could meet up to do it again.

According to The Seattle Times, the student was suspended from school on Feb. 4th due to a fighting, and a teary-eyed Anderson supposedly asked school administrators to reconsider their decision. Four days later Anderson attempted to talk to the parents about the student texting her about his problems, this caused the mother to get suspicious and look into the cellphone account to find the copious amount of texts between the two. This was when the uncle told the boy’s mother of what he had bragged about and that is when she went to the police.

The age of sexual consent in Washington state is actually 16-years-old except in the case of the adult being a teacher or in a position of power over the teen, and then that age increases to 18. Anderson is currently on paid leave and has plead “not guilty” in her first hearing.

And here we have our third entry in the 2011 teacher sex scandals category for this year. Sadly I can tell you I am skipping a lot of the ones that I see simply due to disgust at times, there is certainly no slow down in the number of instances out there.